Saikin Yatotta Maid ga Ayashii

This show is the epitome of knowing everything that has been done with the genre, yet making an almost inferior version of it because the creative juices have all but been squeezed out to nothingness. And in case you didn't know, this Summer's Saikin Yatotta Maid ga Ayashii a.k.a The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious is the 2nd anime adaptation of mangaka Wakame Konbu's works, the 1st of which was last Summer's 2-cour, 20-episode long Jahy-sama wa Kujikenai! a.k.a The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!, which was enjoyable to a certain degree with its comedy and whatnot. Sadly though, what this show offers ... to us is nothing more than just endless, pandering bait of the tropes done before, but un-"sus"-piciously worse in every aspect.

The "teasing" sub-genre has seen its many fair share of really good ones, the likes of Souichirou Yamamoto with the Takagi-san franchise and the same season's Soredemo Ayumu (which is just a character swap), and the one that this show will be most compared to: mangaka Koharu Inoue's Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid a.k.a The Duke of Death and His Maid. But there is a fine line to draw where the teasing goes way above and beyond to the point of being extreme, and unfortunately for Wakame Konbu, he did what the formula has been long orchestrated before for years, only for the audience to be more pissed off at it.

So, let's be real: Yuuri, the young boy that survived a horrific car accident that left both of his parents dead and him being home alone, he is a tough nut to crack being one that is bullied and left to his own devices to sort out his own feelings. It's hard having to micro-manage both the servant and the mansion that he can only call home, that's his safe haven...that is until this mysteriously beautiful, dark-skinned maid called Lilith enters his life, seemingly having a connection with his parents and taking it upon herself to take care of the young master. And the running gag is that the young master finds the maid incredibly "sus" (because that's a thing) due to her behavioural actions and intimidations of the rom-com between a child and an adult. Like, I get it when this is done in Shinigami Bocchan where both Bocchan and Alice are of the same age, and are acquainted well enough to make their teasing game more entertaining and comical. But in the case of Saikin Maid, all I see are just subpar cringefest gags of Lilith having to constantly run her mouth towards Yuuri and tease him romantically to no end, engaging the "will they, won't they" rhetoric. Like, would you believe it if this was done in real life? That would be called blasphemy, and a cardinal sin, even if this is all "make believe" fashion. Also, Yuuri is just plain dense, that's all. Nuff said, unless the point needs to be emphasized that he really doesn't know what's going on, and always plays second fiddle to Lilith until he understands the point, only to follow up on her gag.

The other supporting characters are nothing like what I remember from Jahy-sama when it comes to the traits, they seemed like two exact complete polar opposites from one another. You have Yuuri's classmate and close contact Tsukasa Gojouin with her butler Fujisaki, and believe it or not, their role in this show is just meant to belittle the fact that this show has neither style nor substance, and are only created to show the affiliations to both Yuuri and Lilith in the most "bearable" of terms possible. Take Gojouin for example: she is an "advocate" for the forbidden relationship between the two leads that stems from her being a fan of romance manga and novels, she's the "thirsty sister" that just wants to imagine where the wild things are with the master-maid relationship. Thank God there's Fujisaki to stop her, and out of everyone, she's the most calm and collected character of the bunch keeping Gojouin in constant check. Fujisaki's the "gatekeeper" of anything and everything, so I'm glad that her character exists to bond the rest of the cast together in some form and function as the only sane person in the lot.

Unsurprisingly, it's Silver Link back at it again with subpar in-house director Mirai Minato on his 2nd rondo with this show after Jahy-sama. At least I would admit that Jahy-sama is supposed to be paid more attention to detail given its 20-episode runtime, and since recently there has been more of the studio's collab work with another minor studio Blade, I can't really tell if they ever improved the line work to begin with, or could it be that Silver Link has consistently produced good and bad shows in a never-ending cycle. At the very least, it seems that this show is used to train a relatively new director (Misuzu Hoshino) under Mirai Minato's tutelage, but as we all know that quantity does not equal to quality, and this one is just a pure bad pass wth the bare minimums of actually getting the job done. It's the same story with the OST, it's very forgettable and there's nothing noteworthy to be talked about.

Just like Shinigami Bocchan, Saikin Maid has its wholesome moments, but to the extent of getting towards its objective is one that cannot be displaced, for where the destination lies is how the journey to get there is done, and this has already brought in mixed comments when it comes to author Wakame Konbu's way of expression in this show. It's definitely way different from what I was expecting to be: a Shinigami Bocchan version of Jahy-sama, only except that the charm wears off faster than it could remain, with the majority finding this to be pure bad and the minority enjoying for what it truly is.

I can only draw the line in the middle like Humpty Dumpty, not knowing where the egg will fall in this one, though the reckoning that it'll lean more towards the bad side. It's just mediocre, that's all.

When I finished watching this anime, I immediately marked it as completed here on the site as I usually do. One thing I noticed was the average score of this anime is extremely low for what this anime has to offer the viewer.
I was outraged, so I went to see the reviews to understand what was the issue that people were seeing in this anime, but I soon understood what was happening after seeing some reviews.
A very peculiar pattern is that most of the negative reviews had the indication of "preliminary" while the positive reviews were from people who actually completed the anime. I understand ... the anime is not of that incredible production level and has the appearance of being made on a very cheap budget, but that simply does not justify the low average score evaluated by users, (6.58) while I am writing this review.
So before I start my real review I want to make it clear that most of the people who didn't recommend this anime are people who probably went through 3 or 4 episodes, fiddling with their cellphone or doing something else, since this anime has a better quality.

Saikin proposal is nothing extremely complicated, on the contrary, it is something extremely simple and palatable even for a person who is not used to watching anime. Despite the proposal being simple, the execution of this anime deserves a highlight since it manages to directly give the viewer the feeling he wants to convey in a subtle way, even if nothing is happening at the moment, it gives you exactly the feeling he proposes at the moment. Our protagonist is an innocent child, it's cool to see him develop during the episodes, it's not that boring thing of "the protagonist is there simply for the development of the work to happen." no, it was a work made with love and thought about how it would be placed in each episode, the progression of this anime is a strong point since, on the contrary of animes that are stalled just to hold the viewer for one more episode, this anime is compact, satisfactory to see how things unfold, I haven't watched a work so connected with the viewer for a long time.
Before you start watching, I recommend grabbing a coffee or hot chocolate and making yourself comfortable. You will have a great experience watching the course of such an unpretentious story but at the same time so nice to watch.

As I mentioned before, the anime has its limitations because of a simple budget, but that doesn't prevent you from having some experience with the anime, on the contrary, it somehow conveys the feeling of being something directly to you. Silver Link already has a precedent of making anime style comfortable for the viewer. Just like Non Non Biyori, they got it right again. They managed to balance the "Slice of Life" with a progression in the story. It's very difficult to balance these two things since if you don't get the measure right, it can either become a boring anime where nothing happens, or it can turn into a chaos of information or things that don't give the viewer time to digest what's happening. Saikin manages to maintain this balance, which is another great success of the Anime, I haven't read the manga yet but I believe that the adaptation was exactly what the screenwriter intended when writing this story.
It's hard to make ends meet in this anime industry, where there are big companies spending millions on production, and you're someone who has a great story to watch but can't afford the production costs. I really like it when these smaller production companies manage to do such good work even without so many opportunities.
The direction is nothing extremely outstanding in the anime industry, but even so Minato Mirai managed to do something good for the viewer to watch, just like he already did with Otome Game, he brought this experience to the "future" and made another good work. So you can say it's a well-directed anime.

If you asked me if this anime is worth watching, I would say yes without thinking twice. This anime is a great way to pass the time, I'm sure you'll like the characters, the way they are introduced in the story and how they are carried through the eleven episodes. The story sustains itself so as not to be boring at all, on the contrary, it encourages you to continue watching. The drama is not that "I'm running out of ideas so we need to put on some drama" stuff. No, the drama makes sense with the story and only adds more to the anime.

Give this anime a chance!

Your seasonal bit of feel good fodder which has a feel good vibe to it.

Not a bad anime if you're looking for an 11 episode slice of life revolving around a pre teen kid who's innocently ignorant about the other ways he can come off when talking to his maid. It has mild comedy in it if you like the entertaining reactions to comments the MC makes which he isn't fully aware of when he makes them because he's a pre teen kind of sheltered kid with the sub genre being romance which you know there'll never be full on romance because that would just ... be plain paedophilia.
With the story it doesn't really progress anywhere as it's a slice of life with no end goal but to just be a nice feel good show.
The art style is nice that's used and does it's job well when it comes to characters design in the show although it doesn't do that when it comes to objects(not that the objects in the show matter too much).

So I'd advise watching this is you're looking for something with mild comedy and a nice feel good feeling it gives you along with the comedy it can give. Although if you're looking for a show that shows progress and development in the storyline and characters then I'd advise to watch something else due to it not being that kind of show.